Cyber attack on Italian National Institute for Social Assistance threatens users’ personal data

The portal of the Italian National Institute for Social Assistance (INAS), has been hacked, potentially putting the personal data of its users at risk.

INAS is an organisation which is part of the National Confederation of Workers’ trade unions responsible for protecting and advancing the interests of its members in the workplace.

The authority said that a portal hack could have put the personal data of its subscribers at risk. The data stolen includes users’ data such as email address, password and, where indicated, telephone number and profession. The organisation reiterated that the data relating to the procedures carried out in its offices were not stored on the portal, hence were not subject to the data breach.

INAS said that the cyber attack was immediately reported to the Italian Data Protection Authority and to the Postal Police and an in-depth investigation is currently underway. 37,500 individuals’ data was affected.

INAS said in a press release, “We are aware of the fact that this incident causes inconvenience to our users: we are contacting them all to apologise for the inconvenience and we will continue to keep them informed in the coming days through this page. Please therefore return to consult it for all updates.”

Attacks continue to plague both public and private sector organisations. The UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) this week announced it is creating a toolkit to help Britain’s biggest boards understand their cyber risk.

Ciaran Martin, chief executive of the NCSC, offered boards five questions that will help organisations prepare for a cyber attack at the annual CBI Cyber Security: Business Insight Conference 2018.

The five questions the NCSC is recommending boards ask are:

How do we defend our organisation against phishing attacks?

What do we do to control the use of our privileged IT accounts?

How do we ensure that our software and devices are up to date?

How do we ensure our partners and suppliers protect the information we share with them?

What authentication methods are used to control access to systems and data?

Martin said, “Cyber security is now a mainstream business risk. So corporate leaders need to understand what threats are out there, and what the most effective ways are of managing the risks.

He said, “But to have the plain English, business focussed discussions at board level, board members need to get a little bit technical. They need to understand cyber risk in the same way they understand financial risk, or health and safety risk.

He added, “Our sample questions today, which we’ve published in consultation with businesses, aim to equip board members to ask the right questions and begin to understand the answers.”

“There is no such thing as a foolish question in cyber security. The foolish act is walking away without understanding the answer because that means you don’t understand how you’re handling this core business risk,” he concluded.